i agree that it is not likely to be the way we have seen it previously. Merchant shipping is much more easily and cheaply attacked by air than sub, that doesn't discount target of opportunity by any large scale campaign against merchant shipping will most likely be from the air.
Submarines have evolved two platforms, missle for offensive capability against land targets and hunter killers targeting the missle boats.
Just because Russia has little capability in either left from the cold war, doesn't mean that there are not other navies developing capabilities in both areas.
Will there be another global conflict? Given our previous history I can;t say that this is impossible and unfortunately I feel the next global conflict is likely to escalate on religious rather than purely nationalistic grounds.
I hope that we can avoid such a catastrophe, however as long as there is ignorance and arrogance in world leaders, there is likely to be conflict which could lead to wider consequnces than first imagined. Look at the incident which triggered WWI. A fairly unimportant member of a european royal family was shot and people from as far away as Australia and Japan became involved within weeks!
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